by Mark Clodi
“What Jimbo? Too dazed to say ‘Hello’? You should never have come looking for me.” While she said this out loud her mental assault continued, her efforts were joined by the girls, particularly the one called ‘Julie’ who were acting on their own. ‘They know!’ Jimbo thought, ‘They know I can resist Nancy’s orders and are trying to figure out how I am doing it before she kills me.’ He laughed out loud.
“Hello? Jimbo when someone is hitting you in the face you don’t normally laugh. What is so funny you little shit comedian?” As Nancy said this she stopped hitting Jimbo and he could refocus and see that she was genuinely confused by his behavior and exhausted too, from the mental fight for control they had just had, he knew she would not be able to dominate him, she did not have the strength, he also knew he was probably dead anyway, he could maybe outrun Nancy, but not the girls, who seemed to be in even better shape after having consumed parts of Fred.
Nancy’s glowing, otherworldly hugeness had disappeared, she just looked tired now, but still human.
“I don’t suppose it would do me any good to tell you I could still be useful to you?” asked Jimbo.
“Well normally Jimbo I would be inclined to say, ‘sure’, but you? You? You left me in a bad spot, found the one person who could dominate me, nursed him into consciousness and obviously tried to use him against me. Was I that bad? I mean really?”
“Yeah. Yeah you were Nancy, never let me quite rise to myself, withheld food. Made me do the shit jobs. You think you will get loyalty that way? Oh and you are wrong anyway, he had me too, Nancy, Fred could do to me what you could. Only he didn’t, he would have been better than you. You know what that means, huh? Yeah I see you do.”
“So whoever made Fred is who I should be gunning for now, right? I get you Jimbo. But I don’t care, you know why? No? You Jimbo, I could not get into your mind, it is all smoke and mirrors in there, nothing to grab onto anymore. Where did you pick that trick up in the last twenty four hours? It don’t matter really, if you did it, I can learn it too and when I do, no one will have me. No one.”
Jimbo started laughing again and when Nancy raised a questioning eyebrow he just pointed at her girls. “Them Nancy, how long until they can keep you out? Then what do you do?”
Nancy looked thoughtful for a full minute, then said, “Well thank you Jimbo, you have opened my eyes to the reality of the situation.”
Turning to the girls she said, “I see it now, what he is saying, it is only a matter of time, isn’t it? So. We have to come up with a new deal, a better deal than me bossing all of you around, so how do I make it work, what do you want of me?”
Jimbo felt hope, almost he could envision himself getting out of this situation no more dead than he already was.
“Well c’mon, as Jimbo said you will either tell me now or stab me in the back like this mother fucker later. What can we do to have a more equitable relationship? You, Veronica, you have been with me the longest you tell me what you think.”
“Ah, Nancy, we want control, not you in our heads making us do everything. We would rather be officers than grunts and we, I, want to be asked to do things, not made to do things I detest.”
“The toddlers. Yeah I know that was a tough call, but what? You would have left them there to die? Or found some humans to take them in? If it was not us who did it, not you, then who?” asked Nancy.
“I don’t know, but not me. Not me and never again. You don’t seem to understand, things have changed we are not human anymore, I know that, but just because you have that power over us, however little it is, does not mean you should be boss. What are your plans? I hear you mumble about getting Fred and Jimbo and Max and what? What Nancy? Things have changed, what are we going to do?”
“Well for now I am not giving you control, your attitude needs to improve a bit. Can’t you see I am trying to build an empire here? You three are the start, and will be the generals in the new world order, I want to find the people who are a threat to me, to us, and eliminate them first, then go after fuckers like Dave and take them down while building us up. I can’t have people not following orders, the kids were a lesson to you, that is all. Don’t fuck up and it won’t happen again, right? You learned your lesson and it won’t happen again.”
“No Nancy, try it, just try it now, I could walk away right now, I can SEE your strength you are recovering, but I could have taken you the minute Fred’s blood touched my tongue. The very minute. So what are you going to change right now to make me happy?”
Nancy again paused and looked the girls over. This was not going as planned, but they were not walking and they were not ripping her limb from limb, so maybe a compromise could be worked out.
“Well fuck me, this is what I get for bringing you into the new world, huh? Fuck your own mother over will you? Okay. Okay, I get it, you don’t like being bossed around, so what? We rule by committee? We go our separate ways? We don’t eat babies? What do you want?”
Veronica looked at Julie and Trish, “You two agree to let me do the rest of the talking? Or do you feel differently?” The other girls stammered that they agreed with Veronica, who turned to Nancy then continued, “Okay what I want is for you to stop being such a dumb ass. Could you do that? You’re gonna crucify Jimbo here when he obviously has the smarts to get away from you, and the cleverness to find the guy you were looking for since you smarted up, and he figured out how to block a dominate zombie from jerking you around. And you are going to kill him? Right? Right? Fuck that, you are one dumb ass manager, even I, working in a goddamn coffee shop can see talent when it walks up and spits in my face. We don’t need him.” Here she cast a glance at Jimbo. “As you said whatever he learned he figured out in the last day, so could we, but when he is gone where do we get our next bit of inspiration from? If you kill the talent you will surround yourself with idiots who are worthless when push comes to shove. I say we make him an offer, put him on probation, lop off an arm and say ‘naughty-naughty Jimbo don’t do that again’ and make damn sure he is grateful for it. He can show that gratitude by teaching us what he knows, oh sure I expect him to hold out on us, but if we can all teach each other eighty percent of what we learn, we will all grow more powerful. I say it is time for recruiting, Jimbo here, he gets to be the spy master maybe or the chief wizard of information or whatever the fuck you want to call him. I get to control the Army, Trish and Julie, what do you want?”
Trish answered, “Like a government, I want to be the judicial branch. Nancy you get to be president. Julie?”
“I don’t know, this is happening too fast. Do I have to be anything? Can’t I just choose later?”
“Now is not a good time to sit on the sidelines Julie.” responded Veronica, “You better chose a force and grab your area of power now, before it is too late.”
Still Julie hmmed and hawed around, she could not make a decision, finally Veronica said, “Okay fine, I will take you as an administrator in the ‘army’, you want to be in charge of recruitment? Training? We’ll figure it out later, now we have to see if Nancy is going to remain the ‘president’ and what to do with our Benedict Arnold here.”
“Remain the president? Oh of course I am! I mean who better to lead our nation back to greatness? I can do this V, you know I can and you are right, even dumbfuck over there is right, it was just a matter of time. I mean I couldn’t expect to keep a lid on you girls forever. I still think we should off Jimbo though, he is too much of a risk and has already proven he can be treacherous.” said Nancy, not quite whining, but something in her voice led Jimbo to believe she was aiming for a concession, like if she didn’t get to kill him now, maybe she could do so later, or maybe it was something else.
“No Nancy you still don’t get it. We are going to need treachery and the only reason he did what he did was because you were such a bitch. Do you think we like running around hungry with half our brains working? Hell no! You drove him to it and if you don’t see that you really are not good for us. My only reason for e
ven considering staying around is that you are ruthless enough to get the job done. You also seem to have a goal: Eliminate your enemies and gain power. For what? I don’t know, but it is better than running into the Dave’s of the world and getting fucked over when they are more powerful than we are. I want you to think longer term than that. I will be a commander of your, our, military forces I will hold considerable power to balance you. We need Jimbo, he is not optional. But do we need you?”
“Fuck you drive a hard bargain, you love this don’t you, having me over a barrel? You would not be talking to me like this if I hadn’t wasted all my efforts protecting you from Fred and Jimbo. No! Don’t even start it, I know you need me to change and if we can work together I will. You get your Jimbo.” She spat in his direction. “But I get to lead us and until someone comes up with another plan we still follow my lead.”
“Fine” said Veronica, “I can live with that, Jimbo teaches me first, then Trish, then Julie, you last, I don’t want you backing out after you get your strength back.”
Nancy looked at her with disgust, then chuckled, “Yeah, yeah, okay. You got me covered don’t you? You do know I always intended you to be my right hand woman don’t you? And I meant what I said, they would have been my generals anyway, I suppose this is worth the price of not having to wait until the next time one of you pull a ‘Jimbo’ on me.”
Veronica turned back to Jimbo, “You can get up now, you good with this? No one killing you again, you teaching us and leading up our spy services? You will have to keep us fed by finding humans, keep us safe by making sure we don’t fight other zombie gangs too strong for us to take on and pretty much do everything else we ask. Otherwise just say the word and walk away now. If we see you again we will kill you, like anyone else who is not with us.”
“Uh, when you put it that way, it seems less appealing. I think it could work Veronica and if you can keep Nancy working with me instead of bossing me around you can count me in.” He turned to look at Nancy, “You are a grade ‘A’ bitch, but I could work on your side.”
“Thanks Jimbo.” Nancy said sarcastically, “I love you too.”
“I think the first order of business, for our security, is to find who started this mess. I mean Fred didn’t, and I kind of doubt the guy who bit Fred started it either. Who is the head guy or gal? And where are they, we need information and I am going to make tracking that person down my all time second priority after doing the other things you mentioned: Food, teaching, short term security, intelligence work.” said Jimbo. “We need to figure out a growth strategy too, how many, how soon, do we accept volunteers or must everyone we take on be our ‘children’? We need to do this pronto, before we are overwhelmed by the humans striking back or some other gang wiping us out. I saw what happened when you girls ate Fred, you gained something, like eating a normal human only more so, that means our smartest and most developed will be targets for other smart zombies. We need a base of operations too, where do we make our hideout or fortress of solitude?”
“Good questions Jimbo and a good start. Nancy?” said Veronica.
Grudgingly Nancy replied, “Yeah, okay things I had not considered, but the situation is rapidly changing. Look around here, have the suburbs been good? Sure they have, but half or more of the houses are abandoned right now, no one there to eat. I think we need to move to a different suburb at the very least, if not to another city altogether, does anyone know if the Springs has been infected? No? Yeah I have to admit I have not been watching FOX News much lately either. Instinctively I would say move to Aurora or out east into the sprawl, but that might not be a good move. Everyone will think the same way, north east is pretty much a huge population center too, so the same rule applies, so I have another idea.” When no one asked or replied to her Nancy continued, “Lets go look up Max, Arvada is a smaller suburb, maybe there will not be so many people there and even if Max did not survive, well he had a wife and kids, so we could get a couple recruits out of the deal, assuming she was smart enough to lay low. If Arvada was picked clean we head further west into Golden or up the interstate seventy corridor, eating our way west, or maybe we head to a ski town, smaller population but big enough for our shorter term needs and how many zombies will think the same way? Hopefully fewer than head south or north along the front range. Any comments?”
Jimbo raised his hands, “Just one, it sounds good - better than my thought of ‘hunting for our maker’ anyway, but how do we find Max’s house?”
Smiling Nancy pulled out a pad of paper and waved it in front of Jimbo’s face, “See? They left it when they fled MAC Co., it has their addresses on it, Max’s is the last one. If they are lucky they will survive to walk into an ambush, if we can get there first.”
Chapter 41
Max woke early in the morning to noise from the front of the clinic. He hurt all along his stomach, a burning itch he could not scratch, the noise persisted and he swung himself off the examine table and padded out the door in his boxers, grabbing a bat that had been left thoughtfully by the door.
As he reached he main doors of the clinic he saw one of the younger men in armor finishing off a zombie with his ax, a big hulking ugly ax. The young man saw Max and whistled out to an unseen companion, a woman Max did not know, they both said to Max at the same time, “Are you okay? Should you be up?” The stereo effect was humorous and they both blushed and looked at each other before letting out short, nervous laughs.
“Yeah, yeah I am fine, how are things out here?”
The man answered, “Good, they rush at us once in awhile, but they are pretty easy to fight off, none of the smart ones come close now, since we shot a couple of them.” Max noticed the large revolver he had found was in the kid’s waistband. “Our biggest concern is that the smarter ones will find guns, if they do that we could all be screwed, which is why we try and stay in the foyer here, just in case.”
“Where are Stewart and Steve at?”
The man gestured into the clinic, “First door on the left, past the reception area.”
“Thanks.” Max turned and walked past the reception area and knocked on the first door to the left. A moan came from the room and Max quickly let himself in, he barged in on Steve and Tom half waking up from their spots on the floor and Stewart, laying on the exam table fumbling for her gun, then stopping when she saw Max.
“Good morning Max. Are you supposed to be up?” said Stewart with a yawn in her voice.
“Well they took out my I.V. and no one told me to stay in bed, I heard some fighting and went out to see what was up. Who are the kids in the armor, the one with the ax?”
“Oh those guys, good kids, good men and women and kids I mean, they have a couple younger ones with bows and bats too, little sister. The guy with the ax is probably Michael, I gave him your revolver to keep watch with, I think Whitney is on with him right now, we served our ‘watch’ last night around eight to midnight. They all helped us get into the clinic, saved our asses if you want to know the truth, they got one guy, Jacob, in real bad shape, they got his legs, the zombies, bit him all up. They needed to get into the clinic too, real bad, when we made our run they watched to see what would happened, and helped out when they could. With arrows Max, you know how hard it is to hit anyone in the head with a fucking arrow? Anyway Michael says they practiced for years in competition with this role playing society or something, the rest of them had the armor and weapons from their parents’ involvement and I know Michael made the ax he is using, a ‘real’ weapon he calls it, though it is damn ugly if you ask me. Still it is pretty tough, it hasn’t broken and it goes through skulls better than a bat. Look at me, babbling. How are you feeling?”
“Good, I suppose, my gut aches though, really bad. I have to be careful not to twist around much or the nurse told me the stitches will bust and they gave me anti-biotics to keep from getting infected. Where is the doc and nurse Beth?”
“Dunno, sleeping if they are smart. Is it about five? Yeah enough sleep in this new
age of undead walking the earth.”
“So what is the plan now? Hit Steve’s and then your place before heading to my house?”
Stewart raised her eyebrows, Steve was back laying down, sleeping and Tom was looking like he was ready to bed down again too. Stewart gestured for Max to step back outside the office and they moved into the reception area to talk.
“You were out for awhile, Steve shot out the tire on the squad car, we replaced it with a tire off one of the cars in the street, not a great fit, but the thing drives. Anyway you know we went to the store to get you clothing, nice boxers by the way, we also managed to get to Steve’s apartment and back yesterday afternoon too. The roads are shitty, all filled with broken down cars, almost impassible. I still do not have radio or phone contact with the station, but get this Max, there is a radio station up and running. They guy has been going on for help for quite awhile and he is still on, so we know, or we think anyway that he is not a zombie, yet. There have been a few ‘good old boys’ who have rushed the building, but, wait, you’ll hear.”
Stewart turned to a radio that was sitting on the reception area counter and turned it on. She adjusted the volume slightly until Max could hear a voice, saying, “This is a recorded message, as of last night I was alive and well, but I need to get some sleep, hidden away as best I can be. I am locked in my station and need help, I am not a zombie, but you have to be careful; some of the zombies have learned to talk and act like living people. I am hoping that some group of people can break in and get me out of here or help me defend the building. The address is…” and the voice gave an address of a building out in Aurora.
“Good! Word is getting out at least!” Max shifted around uncomfortably in his boxers. Stewart looked at him and said, “Hey we have power, why don’t you go get dressed and I will make us some coffee? Don’t turn on any lights though, use this,” she handed him a small keychain light, “we think they are attracted to light and I don’t need Michael and Whitney getting overran.”
